Archive for the 'Art Garfunkel' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

Paul Simon speaks just as he writes. For line after line he may appear to dart down random tangents, always engagingly, often poetically, sometimes inscrutably. Suddenly his elliptical thoughts will cohere around a distinct point – and then you get what he means.

That happened more than a few times during our hour-long chat earlier this week.

The new disc – standard LP size, 10 songs in 38 minutes – is a seemingly slight yet richly detailed work whose nuanced grooves and turns-of-phrase lodge themselves in the mind and soul the more you spin it. No less an authority than Elvis Costello, effusive in accompanying liner notes, holds the set among the songwriter's very finest achievements. “This is a man,” he writes, “in full possession of all his gifts looking at the comedy and beauty of life with clarity and the tenderness brought by time.”

Indeed, Simon's observations, laced with sociopolitical commentary without ever being overbearing about it, continue to peer profoundly into the most personal, hard-to-explain facets of humanity.